One month, twelve days of Christmas, and one new year's celebration later, and things are back to normal (whatever that may be). Ozzie ended up spending ten days in the hospital, and in spite of my rant to you all, we actually had several friends and a neighbor step up and help us out with dinner. The in-laws came up to see Ozzie, grandpa charmed the nurses by making up a country song using the information the board Ozzie's room ("Today's goal is pain control, and Heather is your nurse. Cassidy takes vital signs and hopes it's nothing worse.."), I baked dozens of cookies and breads to thank all the staff on the floor, and the first time Ozzie went to the bathroom to do a normal #2, there was much rejoicing in the land (or at least in room 211).
I know, you really needed to know that.
You're welcome.
So then there was Christmas, New Year's, and then a new ice age began. Or, as we apparently like to call these things in 2014, a polar vortex broke out. The kids and I had just returned to school, when the warning came that temperatures would fall to the low teens that night. Now while the low teens may be completely normal to all y'all yankees, down here it was all "WE GON' DIE". For real. We don't do teens. Ever. We do forties. Thirties, maybe. But never do we see anything that starts with a "1". Until this week. So on Monday night, husband-dear and I bundled up our palm trees using blankets, sheets, and free weights (yes, for real. Listen, palm trees are expensive, and we weren't about to let those pricy suckers die), set all of our outside faucets on dripstand, and I spend many, many hours agonizing over my pool pump. Obviously, our brand-spanking new pool pump comes with a freeze protect function, which means you're good when it freezes. And I'm sure that people not burdened by way too much education would just take that for granted and move on, but I made the bad decision several years ago to spend way too much time researching probabilities and statistical anomalies, and so I insisted on setting the timer on the pump to run for 24 hours too. And checking the skimmer for ice every few hours. I know. In a salt pool. But there you have it.
And you know what, OCD or not, all went well. The pump ran, the skimmer remained ice-free, the palmtrees continued to live, and the water from our faucets created love pieces of ice sculpture on the frozen grass. Until Wednesday night.
On Wednesday night, when I was driving home, thankful that this vortex would be moving on within 24 hours, I got one of those calls that started with, "Honey, I have some bad news. But it's not really bad."
The bad-but-not-REALLY-bad news was that our backwash pipe had frozen and burst. And this is not good, but not terrible-tear-your-hair-out-forget-about-retirement either. See, a backwash pipe's sole function is to drain the dirty water you just backwashed out of your pool somewhere away from the pool. It's connected to your pump, but it's an "exit only" pipe, and unless you're backwashing, there's no water in it.
Correction.
There SHOULDN'T be any water in it.
That is unless your pool builders suddenly start acting like absent-minded professors, and decide to lay the pipe at a slight angle TOWARDS the pump, which allows water to collect in said pipe. Which then freezes when all hell breaks loose and temperatures drop into the single digits.
But I didn't freak out.
Hm.
Well, I didn't freak out while anyone could hear me. Let's just say I did some stress-relieving vocalizing after I hung up with husband-dear and before calling our pool builders.
But they reassured me all would be well, and they would send someone by in the morning.
All would have been well and I would not have been writing this post if my OCD hadn't kicked in. And the husband's. In all honesty, he triggered my tendency to worry by saying something to the effect of, "Maybe you should reschedule for them to come on Friday when you're home, so you can make sure they don't lay the pipe at an angle again."
Naturally, my worrywarted self agreed. (and so really it's all his fault. Obviously).
So on Thursday I called to reschedule to today.
And then the skies opened up on Friday morning with rain. Lots and lots of rain. Endless rain. Inches of rain. And apparently laying PVC-pipe in the rain is just not the greatest idea in the world, so when I called the pool place, they rescheduled for next week.
At first, I thought nothing of it. But then it clicked. It was raining. A lot. The water level in the pool was already to the top of the skimmer, which meant I would probably have to drain the pool sometime tomorrow. And guess what pipe you use to drain the pool?
The backwash pipe.
Frick.
For about ten seconds, I had a heart attack, and had visions of liners popping out of the rail, major bills, and lots of hassle. Then, for the next ten seconds, I berated myself for worrying so much about things. Any normal person would have had the pool people fix the pipe on Thursday. But not me. For about two seconds, I debated a minor breakdown involving tears, but instead, I decided to put all that education to good use. I opened up Google, an empty word document, and within five minutes, had three solutions written out in a smartly bullet-ed list:
1. Use the pipe and just let the water run into the front yard. Possibly use the downspout water diverter to direct water away from pump, pool, and house.
2. Get husband-dear to doohickey together a temporary solution involving a metal clamp and a collapsible hose (collapsible hose available, plenty of spare clamps in the garage)
3. Rent a cover pump (similar to a sump pump) to siphon water out of the pool, which were available for rent in town for $27 a day at a place open Mon-Sat from 8am-5pm (phone number and directions included).
An email to husband-dear later, and we had an action plan. As of right now, Friday night, 7pm, I can tell you that #2 was rejected, on account of how the pipe was 2 inches in diameter, and the hose only 1.5", and we're leaning towards #1. Fortunately, it has also stopped raining.
I hope this is the end of the frozen-backwash-pipe tale, but I will keep you posted.
For now I will leave you with the one word that captures it all and that has seen a lot of usage in my current texting traffic: Ugh.
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